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Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Germany is a hotbed of Iranian spy activity that targets Israel

The German Interior Ministry notified a Left Party deputy last week that agents from Iran have been some of the most active spies in the Federal Republic between 2007 and 2017, including assassination attempts on Israel advocates.

German authorities conducted criminal investigations into Iran for 22 cases of espionage, while Russia’s illicit spy activity led with 27 cases. China and Turkey both registered 15 spy cases. Syrian agents were involved in 8 espionage operations. According to the Interior Ministry letter sent to Left Party deputy Jan Korte, the federal government declared four Syrian agents persona non grata.(...)

Last month, a Berlin court sentenced 31-year-old Pakistani citizen Mustufa Haidar Syed-Naqfi to four years and three months in prison for working for Iran’s intelligence service to spy “against Germany and another NATO member.”

According to German prosecutors, Haidar Syed-Naqfi was assigned to identify Israeli and Jewish institutions and Israel advocates in Germany, France and other unnamed Western European countries for possible attacks. He monitored a German-Jewish newspaper’s headquarters in Berlin and Reinhold Robbe, the former head of the German-Israel Friendship Society.

Haidar Syed-Naqfi spied on French-Israeli business Prof. David Rouach, who teaches at the elite Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris and served as head of the French-Israeli Chamber of Commerce, and, according to German authorities, his actions were “a clear indication of an assassination attempt.”